1.5 Getting Started - Installing Git

If you want to install the basic Git tools on Linux via a binary installer, you can generally do so through the package management tool that comes with your distribution. If you’re on Fedora (or any closely-related RPM-based distribution, such as RHEL or CentOS), you can use dnf:

If you’re on a Debian-based distribution, such as Ubuntu, try apt:

For more options, there are instructions for installing on several different Unix distributions on the Git website, at https://git-scm.com/download/linux.

There are several ways to install Git on a Mac. The easiest is probably to install the Xcode Command Line Tools. On Mavericks (10.9) or above you can do this simply by trying to run git from the Terminal the very first time.

If you don’t have it installed already, it will prompt you to install it.

If you want a more up to date version, you can also install it via a binary installer. A macOS Git installer is maintained and available for download at the Git website, at https://git-scm.com/download/mac.

There are also a few ways to install Git on Windows. The most official build is available for download on the Git website. Just go to https://git-scm.com/download/win and the download will start automatically. Note that this is a project called Git for Windows, which is separate from Git itself; for more information on it, go to https://gitforwindows.org.

To get an automated installation you can use the Git Chocolatey package. Note that the Chocolatey package is community maintained.

Some people may instead find it useful to install Git from source, because you’ll get the most recent version. The binary installers tend to be a bit behind, though as Git has matured in recent years, this has made less of a difference.

If you do want to install Git from source, you need to have the following libraries that Git depends on: autotools, curl, zlib, openssl, expat, and libiconv. For example, if you’re on a system that has dnf (such as Fedora) or apt-get (such as a Debian-based system), you can use one of these commands to install the minimal dependencies for compiling and installing the Git binaries:

In order to be able to add the documentation in various formats (doc, html, info), these additional dependencies are required:

If you’re using a Debian-based distribution (Debian/Ubuntu/Ubuntu-derivatives), you also need the install-info package:

If you’re using a RPM-based distribution (Fedora/RHEL/RHEL-derivatives), you also need the getopt package (which is already installed on a Debian-based distro):

Additionally, if you’re using Fedora/RHEL/RHEL-derivatives, you need to do this:

due to binary name differences.

When you have all the necessary dependencies, you can go ahead and grab the latest tagged release tarball from several places. You can get it via the kernel.org site, at https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git, or the mirror on the GitHub website, at https://github.com/git/git/releases. It’s generally a little clearer what the latest version is on the GitHub page, but the kernel.org page also has release signatures if you want to verify your download.

Then, compile and install:

After this is done, you can also get Git via Git itself for updates: